" Now suppose Lord Cornwallis, who sits in the seat, and I hope will long, and honorably and worthily, fill the seat,
which that gentleman possessed, - suppose Lord
Cornwallis, after never having complained of the
insufficiency of his salary, and after having but two
years ago said he had saved a sufficient competency
out of it, should now tell you that 30,0001.
which that gentleman possessed, - suppose Lord
Cornwallis, after never having complained of the
insufficiency of his salary, and after having but two
years ago said he had saved a sufficient competency
out of it, should now tell you that 30,0001.
Edmund Burke
And ill the course of a service of
thirty-two years, and ten of these employed in maintaining the powers and discharging the duties of the first office of the British government in India, that
honorable court ought to know whether I possess the
integrity and honor which are the first requisites of
such a station. If I wanted these, they have afforded
me but too powerful incentives to suppress the information which I now convey to them through you, and to appropriate to my own use the sums which I have
already passed to their credit, by the unworthy and,
pardon me, if I add, dangerous, reflections which they
have passed upon me for the first communication of
this kind: and your own experience will suggest to
you, that there are persons who would profit by such
a warning.
" Upon the whole of these transactions, which to
you, who are accustomed to view business in an official
and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not
improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest
to your consideration.
"If I appear in any unfavorable light by these transactions, I resign the common and legal security of
those who commit crimes or errors. I am ready to
answer every particular question that may be put
against myself, upon honor or upon oath.
" The sources from which these reliefs to the public service have come would never have yielded them
to the Company publicly; and the exigencies of your
? ? ? ? 360 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
service (exigencies created by the exposition of your
affairs, and faction in your councils) required those
supplies.
" I could have concealed them, had I had a wrong
motive, from yours and ttie publia eye forever; and I
know that the difficulties to which a spirit of injustice
may subject me for my candor and avowal are greater
than any possible inconvenience that could have attended the concealmnent, except the dissatisfaction of my
own mind. These difficulties are but a few of those
which I have suffered in your service. The applause
of my own breast is my surest reward, and was the
support of my mind in meeting them. Your applause,
and that of my country, are my next wish in life. "
Your Lordships will observe at the end of this
letter, that this man declares his first applause to be
from his own breast, and that he next wishes to have
the applause of his employers. But reversing this,
and taking their applause first, let us see on what
does he ground his hope of their applause? Was it
on his former conduct? No: for he says that conduct had repeatedly met with their disapprobation.
Was it upon the confidence which he knew they had
in him? No: for he says they gave more of their
confidence to the meanest of his predecessors. Observe, my Lords, the style of insolence he constantly uses with regard to all mankind. Lord Clive was his predecessor, Governor Cartier was his predecessor,
Governor Verelst was his predecessor: every man of
them as good as himself: and yet he says the Directors had given " more of their confidence to the meanest of his predecessors. " But what was to entitle him to their applause? A clear and full explanation
of the bribes he had taken. Bribes was to be the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 361
foundation of their confidence in him, and the clear
explanation of them was to entitle him to their applause! Strange grounds to build confidence upon!
- the rotten ground of corruption, accompanied with
the infamy of its avowal! - Strange ground to expect
applause! i a discovery which was no discovery at
all! Your Lordships have heard this discovery,
which I have not taken upon me to state, but have
read his own letter on the occasion. Has there, at
this moment, any light broken in upon you concerning this matter?
But what does he say to the Directors? He says,
"Upon; the whole of these transactions, which to you,
who are accustomed to view business in an official
and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not
improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest
to your consideration. " He looks upon them and
treats them as a set of low mechanical men, a set of
low-born book-keepers, as base souls, who in all account call for explanation and precision. If there is
no precision in accounts, there is nothing of worth
in them. You see he himself is all eccentric accountant, a Pindaric book-keeper, an arithmetician in the
clouds. "I know," he says, " what the Directors
desire: but they are mean people; they are not of
elevated sentiments; they are modest; they avoid
ostentation in taking of bribes: I therefore am playing cups and balls with them, letting them see a little glimpse of tlie bribes, then carrying them fairly away. " Upon this he founds the applause of his own
breast.
Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.
That private ipse plaudo he may have in this busi
? ? ? ? 362 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ness, which is a business of money; but the applause
of no other human creature will he have for giving
such an account as ble admits this to be, - irregular,
uncertain, problematical, and of which no one can
make either head or tail. . He despises us also, who
are representatives of the people, and have amongst
us all the regular officers of finance, for expecting
anything like a regular account from him. He is
hurt at it; lie considers it as a cruel treatment of
him; he says, " Have I deserved this treatment? "
Observe, my Lords, he had met with no treatment,
if treatment it may be called, from us, of the kind of
which he complains. The Court of Directors had,
however, in a way shameful, abject, low, and pusillanimous, begged of him, as if they were his dependants, and not his masters, to give them some light into the
account; they desire a receiver of money to tell from
whom lihe received it, and how he applied it. He answers, They may be hanged for a parcel of mean, contemptible book-keepers, and that he will give them
no account at all. He says, "' If you sue me "
There is the point: he always takes security in a court
of law. He considers his being called upon by these
people, to whom lie ought as a faithful servant to give
an account, and to do which he was bound by anl act
of Parliament specially intrusting him with the adminiistration of the revenues, as a gross affront. He
adds, that he is ready to resign his defence, and to
answer upon honor or upon oath. Answering uponl
honor is a strange way they have got in India, as your
Lordships may see in the course of this inquiry. But
he forgets, that, being the Company's servant, the
Company may bring a bill in Chancery against him,
and force him upon oath to give ail account. He has
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON TIIE SIXTH ARTICLE. -- THIRD DAY. 363
not, however, given them light enough or afforded
them sufficient ground for a fishing bill in Chancery.
Yet he says, " If you call upon me in a Chancery way,
or by Common Law, I really will abdicate all forms,
and give you some account. " In consequence of this
the Company did demand from him an account, regularly, and as fully and formally as if they had demanded it in a court of justice. He positively refused to give them any account whatever; and they have
never, to this very day in which we speak, had any account that is at all clear or satisfactory. Your Lordships will see, as I go through this scene of fraud, falsification, iniquity, and prevarication, that, in defiance of his promise, which promise they quote upon him over and over again, he has never given them any account of this matter.
He goes on to say (and the threat is indeed alarming) that by calling him to account they may provoke him -- to what? '"To appropriate," he says, "to
my own use the sums which I have already passed to
your credit, by the unworthy and, pardon me, if I
add, dangerous, reflections which you have passed
upon me for the first communication of this kind. "
They passed no reflections: they said they would
neither praise nor blame him, but pressed him for
an account of a matter which they could not understand: and I believe your Lordships understand it no more than they, for it is not in the compass of human
understanding to conceive or comprehend it. Instead of an account of it, he dares to threaten them: "I may be tempted, if you should provoke me, not to be an honest man, - to falsify your account a second time, and to reclaim those sums which I have passed to your credit, -- to alter the account again, by the
? ? ? ? 364 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
assistance of Mr. Larkins. " What a dieadful declaration is this of his dominion over the public accounts, and of his power of altering them! a declaration,
that, having first falsified those accounts in order to
deceive them, and afterwards having told them of
this falsification in order to gain credit with them, if
they provoke him, he shall take back the money he
had carried to, their account, and make them his
debtors for it! He fairly avows the dominion lie has
over the Company's accounts; and therefore, when he
shall hereafter plead the accounts, we shall be able
to rebut that evidence, and say, " The Company's
accounts' are corrupted by you, through your agent,
Mr. Larkins; and we give no credit to them, because
you not only told the Company you could do so, but
we can prove that you have actually done it. " What
a strange medley of evasion, pretended discovery, real
concealment, fraud, and prevarication appears in every
part of this letter!
But admitting this letter to have been written upon the 22d of May, and kept back to the 16th of December, you would imagine that during all that
interval of time he would have prepared himself to
give some light, some illustration of these dark and
mysterious transactions, which carried fraud upon
the very face of them. Did he do so? Not at all.
Upon the 16th of December, instead of giving them
some such clear accounts as might have been expected, he falls into a violent passion for their expecting them; he tells them it would be dangerous; and he
tells them they knew who had profited by these
transactions: thus, in order to strike terror into
their breasts, hinting at some frauds which they had
practised or protected. What weight this may lltveu
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. THIRD DAY. 365
had with them I know not; but your Lordships will
expect in vain, that Mr. Hastings, after giving four
accounts, if any one of which is true, the other three
must necessarily be false, - after having thrown the
Company's accounts into confusion, and being unable to tell, as he says himself, why he did so, --will at last give some satisfaction to the Directors, who
continued, in a humble, meek way, giving him hints that he ought to do it. -- You have heard nothing yet but the consequences of their refusing to give him the present of a hundred thousand pounds, which he had taken from the Nabob. They did right to refuse it to him; they did wrong to take it to themselves.
We now find Mr. Hastings on the river Ganges,
in September, 1784, -- that Ganges whose purifying
water expiates so many sins of the Gentoos, and
which, one would think, would have washed Mr.
Hastings's hands a little clean of bribery, and would
have rolled down its golden sands like another Pactolus. Here we find him discovering another of his
bribes. This was a bribe taken upon totally a different principle, according to his own avowal: it is a
bribe not pretended to be received for the use of the
Company, - a bribe taken absolutely entirely for himself. He tells them that he had taken between thirty
and forty thousand pounds. This bribe, which, like
the former, he had taken without right, he tells them
that he intends to apply to his own purposes, and he
insists upon their sanction for so doing. He says,
lie had in vain, upon a former occasion, appealed to
their honor, liberality, and generosity, - that he now
appeals to their justice; and insists upon their decreeing this bribe - which he had taken without telling them from whom, where, or on what account -to his own use.
? ? ? ? 366 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Your Lordships remember, that in the letter which
he wrote from Patna, onil the 20th of January, 1782,
he there states that he was in tolerable good circumstances, and that this had arisen from his having continued long in their service. Now, he has continued two years longer in their service, and he is reduced to beggary! "This," he says, "is a single
example of a life spent in the accumulation of crores
for your benefit, and doomed in its close to suffer the
extremity of private want, and to sink in obscurity. "
So far back as in 1773 he thought that he could
save an exceeding good fortune out of his place. In
1782 he says, with gratitude, that he has made a
decent private competency; but in two years after
he sunk to the extremity of private want. And how
does he seek to relieve that want? By taking a
bribe: bribes are no longer taken by him for the
Company's service, but for his own. He takes the
bribe with an express intention of keeping it for his
own use, and he calls upon the Company for their
sanction. If the money was taken without right,
no claim of his could justify its being appropriated
to himself: nor could the Company so appropriate
it; for no man has a right to be generous out of
another's goods. When ihe calls upon their justice
and generosity, they might answer, "If you have a
just demand upon our treasury, state it, and we will
pay it; if it is a demand upon our generosity, state
your merits, and we will consider them. " "But I
have paid myself by a bribe; I have taken another
man's money; and I call upon your justice - to do
what? to restore it to its owner? no -- to allow
me to keep it myself. " Think, my Lords, in what
a situation the Company stands! "I have done a
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ART1CLE. - THIRD DAY. 367 great deal for you; this is the jackal's portion; you have been the lion; I have been endeavoring to prog for you; I am your bribe-pander, your factor of corruption, exposing myself to every kind of scorn and ignominy, to insults even from you. I have
been preying and plundering for you; I have gone through every stage of licentiousness and lewdness, wading through every species of dirt and corruption, for your advantage. I am now sinking into the extremity of private want; do give nme this - what? money? no, this bribe; rob me the man who gave me this bribe; vote me --what? money of your own?
that would be generous: money you owe me? that would be just: no, money which I have extorted from another man; and I call upon your justice to give it me. " This is his idea of justice. He says,
"I am compelled to depart from that liberal plan
which I originally adopted, and to claim from your
justice (for you have forbid me to appeal to your
generosity) the discharge of a debt which I can with
the most scrupulous integrity aver to be justly due,
and which I cannot sustain. " Now, if any of the
Company's servants may say, "I have been extravagant, profuse, - it was all meant for your good,let me prey upon the country at my pleasure,license my bribes, frauds, and peculations, and then you do me justice, - what country are we in, where
these ideas are ideas of generosity and justice?
It might naturally be expected that in this letter
he would have given some account of the person from whom he had taken this bribe. But here, as in the other cases, he had a most effectual oblivion; the Ganges, like Lethe, causes a drowsiness, as you saw in Mr. Middleton; they recollect nothing, they know
? ? ? ? 368 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nothing. He has not stated, from that day to this,
from whom he took that money. But we have made
the discovery. And such is the use of Parliamentary
inquiries, such, too, both to the present age and posterity, will be their use, that, if we pursue them with the vigor which the great trust justly imposed upon
us demands, and if your Lordships do firmly administer justice upon this man's frauds, you will at once put an end to those frauds and prevarications forever. Your Lordships will see, that, in this inquiry,
it is the diligence of the House of Commons, which
he has the audacity to call malice, that has discovered
and brought to light the frauds which we shall be
able to prove against him.
I will now read to your Lordships an extract from
that stuff, called a defence, which he has either written himself or somebody else has written for him, and which he owns or disclaims, just as he pleases, when,
under the slow tortures of a Parliamentary impeachment, he discovered at length from whom he got this last bribe.
"The last part of the charge states, that, in my
letter to the Court of Directors of the 21st February, 1784, 1 have confessed to have received another sum of money, the amount of which is not declared,
but which, from the application of it, could not be
less than thirty-four thousand pounds sterling, &c.
In the year 1783, when I was actually in want of a
sum of money for my private expenses, owing to tile
Company not having at that time sufficient cash ill
their treasury to pay my salary, I borrowed three lacs
of rupees of Rajah Nobkissin, an inhabitant of Calcutta, whom I desired to call upon me with a bond properly filled up. He did so; but at the time I was
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. --THIRD DAY. 369
going to execute it he entreated I would rather accept the money than execute the bond. I neither
accepted the offer nor refused it; and my determination upon it remained suspended between the alternative of keeping the money, as a loan to be repaid, and of taking it, and applying it, as I had done other sums, to the Company's use. And there the
matter rested till I undertook my journey to Lucknow, when I determined to accept the money for the
Company's use; and these were my motives. Having made disbursements from my own cash for services, which, though required to enable me to execute
the duties of my station, I had hitherto omitted to enter into my public accounts, I resolved to reimburse
myself in a mode most suitable to the situation of the
Company's affairs, by charging these disbursements
in my durbar accounts of the present year, and crediting them by a sum privately received, which was
this of Nobkissin's. If my claim on the Company
were not founded in justice, and bonad fide due, my
acceptance of three lacs of rupees from Nobkissin
by no means precludes them from recovering that
sum from me. No member of this Honorable House
suspects me, I hope, of the meanness and guilt of
presenting false accounts. "
We do not suspect him of presenting false accounts: we can prove, we are now radically proving, that he presents false accounts. We suspect no
mall who does not give ground for suspicion; we accuse no man who has not given ground for accusation; and we do not attempt to bring before a court
of justice any charges which we shall not be able decisively to prove. This will put an end to all idle
prattle of malice, of groundless suspicions of guilt,
VOL. x. 24
? ? ? ? 370 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
and of ill-founded charges. We come here to bring
the matter to the test, and here it shall be brought to
the test, between the Commons of Great Britain and
this East India delinquent. In his letter of the 21st
of February, 1784, he says he has never benefited
himself by contingent accounts; and as an excuse
for taking this bribe from Nobkissin, which he did
not discover at the time, but many years afterwards,
at the bar of the House of Commons, he declares that
he wanted to apply it to the contingent account for
his expenses, that is, for what he pretended to have
laid out for the Company, during a great number of
years. He proceeds:"If it should be objected, that the allowance of
these demands would furnish a precedent for others
of the like kind, I have to remark, that in their whole
amount they are but the aggregate of a contingent
account of twelve years; and if it were to become the
practice of those who have passed their prime of life
in your service, and filled, as I have filled it, the first
office of your dominion, to glean from their past accounts all the articles of expense which their inaccuracy or indifference hath overlooked, your interests would suffer infinitely less by the precedent than by
a single example of a life spent in the accumulation
of crores for your benefit and doomed in its close to
suffer the extremity of private want and to sink in
obscurity. "
Here is the man that has told us at the bar of the
House of Commons that he never made up any contingent accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this
bribe, which he received for himself, and never intended to apply to the current use of the Company,
he feigns and invents a claim upon them, namely,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 371
that he had, without any authority of the Company,
squandered away in stationery and budgeros, and
other idle services, a sum amounting to 34,0001.
But was it for the Company's service? Is this language to be listened to? "Everything I thought fit
to expend I have expended for the Company's service. I intended, indeed, at that time, to have been generous. I intended out of my own pocket to have
paid for a translation of the code of Gentoo laws. I
was then in the prime of my life, flowing in money,
and had great expectations: I am now old; I cannot
afford to be generous: I will look back into all my
former accounts, pen, ink, wax, everything that I
generously or prodigally spent as my own humor
might suggest; and though, at the same time, I
know you have given me a noble allowance, I now
make a charge upon you for this sum of money, and
intend to take a bribe in discharge of it.
" Now suppose Lord Cornwallis, who sits in the seat, and I hope will long, and honorably and worthily, fill the seat,
which that gentleman possessed, - suppose Lord
Cornwallis, after never having complained of the
insufficiency of his salary, and after having but two
years ago said he had saved a sufficient competency
out of it, should now tell you that 30,0001. a year
was not enough for him, and that he was sinking into want and distress, and should justify upon that alleged want taking a bribe, and then make out a bill of contingent expenses to cover it, would your Lordships bear this?
Mr. Hastings has told you that he wanted to borrow money for his own use, and that he applied to Rajah Nobkissin, who generously pressed it upon
him as a gift. Rajah Nobkissin is a banian: you
? ? ? ? 372 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
will be astonished to hear of generosity in a banian;
there never was a banian and generosity united together: but Nobkissin loses his banian qualities at once, the moment the light of Mr. Hastings's face
beams upon him. "Here," says Mr. Hastings,' I
have prepared bonds for you. " "Astonishing! how
can you think of the meanness of bonds? You call
upon me to lend you 34,0001. , and propose bonds?
No, you shall have it: you are the Governor-General, who have a large and ample salary; but I know you are a generous man, and I emulate your generosity: I give you all this money. " Nobkissin was quite shocked at Mr. Hastings's offering him a bond.
My Lords, a Gentoo banian is a person a little lower,
a little more penurious, a little more exacting, a little more cunning, a little more money-making, than a Jew. There is not a Jew in the meanest corner of
Duke's Place in London that is so crafty, so much a
usurer, so skilful how to turn money to profit, and so
resolved not to give any money but for profit, as a
Gentoo broker of the class I have mentioned. But this
man, however, at once grows generous, and will not
suffer a bond to be given to him; and Mr. Hastings,
accordingly, is thrown into very great distress. You
see sentiment always prevailing in Mr. Hastings.
The sentimental dialogue which must have passed
between him and a Gentoo broker would have
charmed every one that has a taste for pathos and
sentiment. Mr. Hastings was pressed to receive the
money as a gift. He really does not know what to
do: whether to insist upon giving a bond or not,whether he shall take the money for his own use, or whether he shall take it for the Company's use. But
it may be said of man as it is said of woman: the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 373
woman who deliberates is lost: the man that deliberates about receiving bribes is gone. The moment he
deliberates, that moment his reason, the fortress, is
lost, the walls shake, down it comes, - and at the
same moment enters Nobkissiu into the citadel of his
honor and integrity, with colors flying, with drums
beating, and Mr. Hastings's garrison goes out, very
handsomely indeed, with the honors of war, all for the
benefit of the Company. Mr. Hastings consents to
take the money from Nobkissin; Nobkissin gives the
money, and is perfectly satisfied.
Mr. Hastings took the money with a view to apply it
to the Company's service. How? To pay his own
contingent bills. " Everything that I do," says he,
" and all the money I squander, is all for the Company's benefit. As to particulars of accounts, never look
into them; they are given you upon honor. Let me
take this bribe: it costs you nothing to be just or
generous. I take the bribe: you sanctify it. " But
in every transaction of Mr. Hastings, where we have
got a name, there we have got a crime. Nobkissin
gave him the money, and did not take his bond, I
believe, for it; but Nobkissin, we find, immediately
afterwards enters upon the stewardship or management of one of the most considerable districts in Bengal. We know very well, and shall prove to your Lordships, in what manner such men rack such districts, and exact from the inhabitants the money to
repay themselves for the bribes which had been taken
from them. These bribes are taken under a pretence
of the Company's service, but sooner or later they fall
upon the Company's treasury. And we shall prove
that Nobkissin, within a year from the time when he
gave this bribe, had fallen into arrears to the Compa
? ? ? ? 374 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ny, as their steward, to the amount of a sum the very
interest of which, according to the rate of interest in
that country, amounted to more than this bribe, taken,
as was pretended, for the Company's service. Such
are the consequences of a banian's generosity, and of
Mr. Hastings's gratitude, so far as the interest of the
country is concerned; and this is a good way to pay
Mr. Hastings's contingent accounts. But this is not
all: a most detestable villain is sent up into the country to take the management of it, and the fortunes of all the great families ill it are given entirely into his
power. This is the way by which the Company are to
keep their own servants from falling into " the extremity of private want. " And the Company itself,
in this pretended saving to their treasury by the taking of bribes, lose more than the amount of the bribes received. Wherever a bribe is given on one hand,
there is a balance accruing on the other. No man,
who had any share in the management of the Company's revenues, ever gave a bribe, who did not either extort the full amount of it from the country, or else
fall in balance to the Company to that amount, and
frequently both. In short, Mr. Hastings never was
guilty of corruption, that blood and rapine did not
follow; he never took a bribe, pretended to be for
their benefit, but the Company's treasury was proportionably exhausted by it.
And now was this scandalous and ruinous traffic
in bribes brought to light by the Court of Directors?
No: we got it in the House of Commons. These
bribes appear to have been taken at various times and
upon various occasions; and it was not till his return
from Patna, in February, 1782, that the first communication of any of them was made to the Court of Di
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 375
rectors. Upon the receipt of this letter, the Court of
Directors wrote back to him, requiring some further
explanation upon the subject. No explanation was
given, but a communication of other bribes was made
in his letter, said to be written in May of the same year,
but not dispatched to Europe till the December following. This produced another requisition from the Directors for explanation. And here your Lordships
are to observe that this correspondence is never in the
way of letters written and answers given; but he and
the Directors are perpetually playing at hide-and-seek
with each other, and writing to each other at random:
Mr. Hastings making a communication one day, the
Directors requiring an explanation the next; Mr.
Hastings giving an account of another bribe on the
third day, without giving any explanation of the former. Still, however, the Directors are pursuing their chase. But it was not till they learned that the committees of the House of Commons (for committees of the House of Commons had then some weight) were
frowning upon them for this collusion with Mr. Hastings, that at last some honest men in the Direction were permitted to have some ascendency, and that a
proper letter was prepared, which I shall show your
Lordships, demanding from Mr. Hastings alln exact
account of all the bribes that he had received, and
painting to him, in colors as strong at least as those
I use, his bribery, his frauds, and peculations, -and
what doeo them great honor for that moment, they
particularly direct that the money which was taken
from the Nabob of Oude should be carried to his account. These paragraphs were prepared by the Committee of Correspondence, and, as I understand, ap, proved by the Court of Directors, but never were sent
? ? ? ? 376 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
out to India. However, something was sent, but
miserably weak and lame of its kind; and Mr. Hastings never answered. it, or gave them any explanation
whatever. He now, being prepared for his departure
from Calcutta, and having finished all his other business, went up to Oude upon a chase in which just now
we cannot follow him. He returned in great disgust
to Calcutta, and soon after set sail for England, without ever giving the Directors one word of the explanation which he had so often promised, and they had repeatedly asked.
We have now got Mr. Hastings in England, where
you will suppose some satisfactory account of all
these matters would be obtained from him. One
would suppose, that, on his arrival in London, he
would have been a little quickened by a menace, as
he expresses it, which had been thrown out against
him in the House of Commons, that an inquiry would
be made into his conduct; and the Directors, apprehensive of the same thing, thought it good gently
to insinuate to him by a letter, written by whom and
how we do not know, that he ought to give some explanation of these accounts. This produced a letter
which I believe in the business of the whole world
cannot be paralleled: not even himself could be his
parallel in this. Never did inventive folly, working
upon conscious guilt, and throwing each other totally
in confusion, ever produce such a false, fraudulent,
prevaricating letter as this, which is now to be given
to you.
You have seen him at Patna, at Calcutta, in the
country, on the Ganges: now you see him at the
waters at Cheltenham; and you will find his letter
from that place to comprehend the substance of all
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 377
his former letters, and to be a digest of all the falsity,
fraud, and nonsense contained in the whole of them.
Here it is, and your Lordslips will suffer it to be read.
I must beg your patience; I must acknowledge that
it has been the most difficult of all things to explain, but much more difficult to make pleasant and
not wearisome, falsity and fraud pursued through all
its artifices; and therefore, as it has been the most
painful work to us to unravel fraud and prevarication, so there is nothing that more calls for the attention, the patience, the vigilance, and the scrutiny of an exact court of justice. But as you have already had almost the whole of the man, do not think
it too much to hear the rest in this letter from Cheltenham. It is dated, Cheltenham, 11th of July,
1785, addressed to William Devaynes, Esquire; and
it begins thus:" Sir,- The Honorable Court of Directors, in their
general letter to Bengal by the' Surprise,' dated the
16th of March, 1784, were pleased to express their
desire that I should inform tliem of the periods when
each sum of the presents mentioned in my address
of the 22d May, 1782, was received, - what were
my motives for withholding the several receipts from
the knowledge of the Council, or of the Court of
Directors, -- and what were my reasons for taking
bonds for part of these sums, and for paying other
sums into the treasury as deposits, on my own acCOUlnt. "
I wish your Lordships to pause a moment. Here
is a letter written in July, 1785. You see that from
the 29th of December [November? ], 1780, till that
* See this letter in the Appendix to the Eighth and Sixteenth
Charges, Vol. IX. pp. 319 - 325, in the present edition.
? ? ? ? 378 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HA STINGS.
time, during which interval, though convinced in his
own conscience and though lie had declared his own
opinion of the necessity of giving a full explanation
of these money transactions, lie had been imposing
upon the Directors false and prevaricating accounts
of them, they were never able to obtain a full disclosure from him.
He goes oil:-" I have been kindly apprised that
the information required as above is yet expected
from me. I hope that the circumstances of my past
situation, when considered, will plead my excuse for
having thus long withheld it. The fact is, that I
was not at the Presidency when the'Surprise' arrived; and when I returned to it, my time and attepltion were so entirely engrossed, to the day of my final departure from it, by a variety of other more
important occupations, of which, Sir, I may safely
appeal to your testimony, grounded on the large portion contributed by myself of the volumes which
compose our Consultations of that period,"These Consultations,' my Lords, to which he appeals, form matter of one of the charges that the Commons have brought against Mr. Hastings, --
namely, a fraudulent attempt to ruin certain persons
employed in subordinate situations under him, for
the purpose, by intruding himself into their place,
of secretly carrying on his own transactions. These
volumes of Consultations were written to justify that
act.
He next says,-" The submission which my respect
would have enjoined me to pay to the command
imposed on me was lost to my recollection, perhaps
from the stronger impression which the first and
distant perusal of it had left on my mind, that it
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARUICLE. - THIRD DAN. 379
was rather intended as a reprehension for something
which had given offence in my report of the original
transaction than an expression of any want of a further elucidation of it. "
Permit me to make a few remarks upon this extraordinary passage. A letter is written to him, containing a repetition of the request which had been made a thousand times before, and with which he
had as often promised to comply. And here he says,
" It was lost to my recollection. " Observe his memory: he can forget the command, but he has an
obscure recollection that he thought it a reprehension rather than a demand! Now a reprehension
is a stronger mode of demand. When I say to a
servant, "W Thy have you not given me the account
which I have so often asked for? " is he to answer,
" The reason I have not given it is because I thought
you were railing at and abusing me"?
He goes on: - I will now endeavor to reply to the
different questions which have been stated to me, in
as explicit a manner as I am able. To such information as I can give the Honorable Court is fully
entitled; and where that shall prove defective, I will
point out the only means by which it may be rendered more complete. "
In order that your Lordships may thoroughly enter into the spirit of this letter, I must request that
you will observe how handsomely and kindly these
tools of Directors have expressed themselves to him,
and that even their baseness and subserviency to him
were not able to draw from him anything that could
be satisfactory to his enemies: for as to these his
friends, he cares but little about satisfying them,
though they call upon him in consequence of his
? ? ? ? 380 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
own promise; and this he calls a reprehension. Trhey
thus express themselves:-" Although it is not our
intention to express any doubt of the integrity of the
Governor-General, - on the contrary, after having
received the presents, we cannot avoid expressing
our approbation of his conduct in bringing them to
the. credit of the Company, - yet we must confess
the statement of those transactions appears to us in
many points so unintelligible, that we feel ourselves
under the necessity of calling on the Governor-General for an explanation, agreeable to his promise voluntarily made to us. We therefore desire to be informed of the different periods when each sum was received, and what were the Governor-General's motives for withholding the several receipts from the
knowledge of the Council and of the Court of Directors, and what were his reasons for taking bonds for
part of these sums and paying other sums into the
treasury as deposits upon his own account. " Such
is their demand, and this is what his memory furnishes as nothing but a reprehension.
He then proceeds: -" First, I believe I can affirm
with certainty that the several sums mentioned in the
account transmitted with my letter above mentioned
were received at or within a very few days of the
dates which are affixed to them in the account. But
as this contains only the gross sums, and each of
these was received in different payments, though at
no great distance of time, I cannot therefore assign
a great degree of accuracy to the account. "-Your
Lordships see, that, after all, lhe declares he cannot
make his account accurate. He further adds, "Perhaps the Honorable Court will judge this sufficient"
- that is, this explanation, niamely, that he can give
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 381
none -" for any purpose to which their inquiry was
directed; but if it should not be so, I will beg leave
to refer, for a more minute information, and for the
means of making any investigation which they may
think it proper to direct, respecting the particulars
of this transaction, to Mr. Larkins, your accountantgeneral, who was privy to every process of it, and possesses, as I believe, the original paper, which contained the only account that I ever kept of it. " Here is a man who of his bribe accounts cannot
give an account in the country where they are car
ried on. When you call upon him in Bengal, he
cannot give the account, because he is in Bengal;
when he comes to England, he cannot give the account here, because his accounts are left in Bengal. Again, he keeps no accounts himself, but his accounts are in Bengal, in the hands of somebody
else: to him he refers, and we shall see what that
reference produced.
"In this, each receipt was, as I recollect, specifically inserted, with the name of the person by whom it was made; and I shall write to him to desire that
he will furnish you with the paper itself, if it is still
in being and in his hands, or with whatever he can
distinctly recollect concerning it. " --Here are accounts kept for the Company, and yet he does not know whether they are in existence anywhere.
" For my motives for withholding the several receipts from the knowledge of the Council or of the Court of Directors, and for taking bonds for part of
these sums, and paying others into the treasury as
deposits on my own account, I have generally accounted in my letter to the Honorable the Court
of Directors of the 22d of May, 1782, - namely, that
? ? ? ? 382 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I either chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which my
memory at that distance of time could verify, and
that I did not think it worth my care to observe
the same means with the rest. It will not be expected that I should be able to give a more correct explanation of my intentions after a lapse of three
years, having declared at the time that many particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither shall
I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. "
You have heard of that Oriental figure called, in
the banian language, a painche, in English, a screw.
It is a puzzled and studied involution of a period,
framed in order to prevent the discovery of truth and
the detection of fraud; and surely it cannot be better exemplified than in this sentence: c" Neither shall I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. " Observe, that he says, not facts stated,
but facts implied in the report. And of what was
this to be a report? Of things which the Directors
declared they did not understand. And then the inferences which are to follow these implied facts are to follow them e But how? With a strong probability. If you have a mind to study this Oriental
figure of rhetoric, the painche, here it is for you in
its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever
gave an example of any figure of oratory that can
match this.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 383
But let us endeavor to unravel the whole passage. First he states, that, in May, 1782, he had
forgotten his motives for falsifying the Company's
accounts; but he affirms the facts contained in the
report, and afterwards, very rationally, draws such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. And if I understand it at all, which
God knows I no more pretend to do than Don Quix
ote did those sentences of lovers in romance-writers
of which he said it made him run mad to attempt
to discover the meaning, the inference is, " Why do
you call upon me for accounts now, three years after the time when I could not give you them?
thirty-two years, and ten of these employed in maintaining the powers and discharging the duties of the first office of the British government in India, that
honorable court ought to know whether I possess the
integrity and honor which are the first requisites of
such a station. If I wanted these, they have afforded
me but too powerful incentives to suppress the information which I now convey to them through you, and to appropriate to my own use the sums which I have
already passed to their credit, by the unworthy and,
pardon me, if I add, dangerous, reflections which they
have passed upon me for the first communication of
this kind: and your own experience will suggest to
you, that there are persons who would profit by such
a warning.
" Upon the whole of these transactions, which to
you, who are accustomed to view business in an official
and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not
improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest
to your consideration.
"If I appear in any unfavorable light by these transactions, I resign the common and legal security of
those who commit crimes or errors. I am ready to
answer every particular question that may be put
against myself, upon honor or upon oath.
" The sources from which these reliefs to the public service have come would never have yielded them
to the Company publicly; and the exigencies of your
? ? ? ? 360 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
service (exigencies created by the exposition of your
affairs, and faction in your councils) required those
supplies.
" I could have concealed them, had I had a wrong
motive, from yours and ttie publia eye forever; and I
know that the difficulties to which a spirit of injustice
may subject me for my candor and avowal are greater
than any possible inconvenience that could have attended the concealmnent, except the dissatisfaction of my
own mind. These difficulties are but a few of those
which I have suffered in your service. The applause
of my own breast is my surest reward, and was the
support of my mind in meeting them. Your applause,
and that of my country, are my next wish in life. "
Your Lordships will observe at the end of this
letter, that this man declares his first applause to be
from his own breast, and that he next wishes to have
the applause of his employers. But reversing this,
and taking their applause first, let us see on what
does he ground his hope of their applause? Was it
on his former conduct? No: for he says that conduct had repeatedly met with their disapprobation.
Was it upon the confidence which he knew they had
in him? No: for he says they gave more of their
confidence to the meanest of his predecessors. Observe, my Lords, the style of insolence he constantly uses with regard to all mankind. Lord Clive was his predecessor, Governor Cartier was his predecessor,
Governor Verelst was his predecessor: every man of
them as good as himself: and yet he says the Directors had given " more of their confidence to the meanest of his predecessors. " But what was to entitle him to their applause? A clear and full explanation
of the bribes he had taken. Bribes was to be the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 361
foundation of their confidence in him, and the clear
explanation of them was to entitle him to their applause! Strange grounds to build confidence upon!
- the rotten ground of corruption, accompanied with
the infamy of its avowal! - Strange ground to expect
applause! i a discovery which was no discovery at
all! Your Lordships have heard this discovery,
which I have not taken upon me to state, but have
read his own letter on the occasion. Has there, at
this moment, any light broken in upon you concerning this matter?
But what does he say to the Directors? He says,
"Upon; the whole of these transactions, which to you,
who are accustomed to view business in an official
and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not
improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest
to your consideration. " He looks upon them and
treats them as a set of low mechanical men, a set of
low-born book-keepers, as base souls, who in all account call for explanation and precision. If there is
no precision in accounts, there is nothing of worth
in them. You see he himself is all eccentric accountant, a Pindaric book-keeper, an arithmetician in the
clouds. "I know," he says, " what the Directors
desire: but they are mean people; they are not of
elevated sentiments; they are modest; they avoid
ostentation in taking of bribes: I therefore am playing cups and balls with them, letting them see a little glimpse of tlie bribes, then carrying them fairly away. " Upon this he founds the applause of his own
breast.
Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.
That private ipse plaudo he may have in this busi
? ? ? ? 362 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ness, which is a business of money; but the applause
of no other human creature will he have for giving
such an account as ble admits this to be, - irregular,
uncertain, problematical, and of which no one can
make either head or tail. . He despises us also, who
are representatives of the people, and have amongst
us all the regular officers of finance, for expecting
anything like a regular account from him. He is
hurt at it; lie considers it as a cruel treatment of
him; he says, " Have I deserved this treatment? "
Observe, my Lords, he had met with no treatment,
if treatment it may be called, from us, of the kind of
which he complains. The Court of Directors had,
however, in a way shameful, abject, low, and pusillanimous, begged of him, as if they were his dependants, and not his masters, to give them some light into the
account; they desire a receiver of money to tell from
whom lihe received it, and how he applied it. He answers, They may be hanged for a parcel of mean, contemptible book-keepers, and that he will give them
no account at all. He says, "' If you sue me "
There is the point: he always takes security in a court
of law. He considers his being called upon by these
people, to whom lie ought as a faithful servant to give
an account, and to do which he was bound by anl act
of Parliament specially intrusting him with the adminiistration of the revenues, as a gross affront. He
adds, that he is ready to resign his defence, and to
answer upon honor or upon oath. Answering uponl
honor is a strange way they have got in India, as your
Lordships may see in the course of this inquiry. But
he forgets, that, being the Company's servant, the
Company may bring a bill in Chancery against him,
and force him upon oath to give ail account. He has
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON TIIE SIXTH ARTICLE. -- THIRD DAY. 363
not, however, given them light enough or afforded
them sufficient ground for a fishing bill in Chancery.
Yet he says, " If you call upon me in a Chancery way,
or by Common Law, I really will abdicate all forms,
and give you some account. " In consequence of this
the Company did demand from him an account, regularly, and as fully and formally as if they had demanded it in a court of justice. He positively refused to give them any account whatever; and they have
never, to this very day in which we speak, had any account that is at all clear or satisfactory. Your Lordships will see, as I go through this scene of fraud, falsification, iniquity, and prevarication, that, in defiance of his promise, which promise they quote upon him over and over again, he has never given them any account of this matter.
He goes on to say (and the threat is indeed alarming) that by calling him to account they may provoke him -- to what? '"To appropriate," he says, "to
my own use the sums which I have already passed to
your credit, by the unworthy and, pardon me, if I
add, dangerous, reflections which you have passed
upon me for the first communication of this kind. "
They passed no reflections: they said they would
neither praise nor blame him, but pressed him for
an account of a matter which they could not understand: and I believe your Lordships understand it no more than they, for it is not in the compass of human
understanding to conceive or comprehend it. Instead of an account of it, he dares to threaten them: "I may be tempted, if you should provoke me, not to be an honest man, - to falsify your account a second time, and to reclaim those sums which I have passed to your credit, -- to alter the account again, by the
? ? ? ? 364 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
assistance of Mr. Larkins. " What a dieadful declaration is this of his dominion over the public accounts, and of his power of altering them! a declaration,
that, having first falsified those accounts in order to
deceive them, and afterwards having told them of
this falsification in order to gain credit with them, if
they provoke him, he shall take back the money he
had carried to, their account, and make them his
debtors for it! He fairly avows the dominion lie has
over the Company's accounts; and therefore, when he
shall hereafter plead the accounts, we shall be able
to rebut that evidence, and say, " The Company's
accounts' are corrupted by you, through your agent,
Mr. Larkins; and we give no credit to them, because
you not only told the Company you could do so, but
we can prove that you have actually done it. " What
a strange medley of evasion, pretended discovery, real
concealment, fraud, and prevarication appears in every
part of this letter!
But admitting this letter to have been written upon the 22d of May, and kept back to the 16th of December, you would imagine that during all that
interval of time he would have prepared himself to
give some light, some illustration of these dark and
mysterious transactions, which carried fraud upon
the very face of them. Did he do so? Not at all.
Upon the 16th of December, instead of giving them
some such clear accounts as might have been expected, he falls into a violent passion for their expecting them; he tells them it would be dangerous; and he
tells them they knew who had profited by these
transactions: thus, in order to strike terror into
their breasts, hinting at some frauds which they had
practised or protected. What weight this may lltveu
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. THIRD DAY. 365
had with them I know not; but your Lordships will
expect in vain, that Mr. Hastings, after giving four
accounts, if any one of which is true, the other three
must necessarily be false, - after having thrown the
Company's accounts into confusion, and being unable to tell, as he says himself, why he did so, --will at last give some satisfaction to the Directors, who
continued, in a humble, meek way, giving him hints that he ought to do it. -- You have heard nothing yet but the consequences of their refusing to give him the present of a hundred thousand pounds, which he had taken from the Nabob. They did right to refuse it to him; they did wrong to take it to themselves.
We now find Mr. Hastings on the river Ganges,
in September, 1784, -- that Ganges whose purifying
water expiates so many sins of the Gentoos, and
which, one would think, would have washed Mr.
Hastings's hands a little clean of bribery, and would
have rolled down its golden sands like another Pactolus. Here we find him discovering another of his
bribes. This was a bribe taken upon totally a different principle, according to his own avowal: it is a
bribe not pretended to be received for the use of the
Company, - a bribe taken absolutely entirely for himself. He tells them that he had taken between thirty
and forty thousand pounds. This bribe, which, like
the former, he had taken without right, he tells them
that he intends to apply to his own purposes, and he
insists upon their sanction for so doing. He says,
lie had in vain, upon a former occasion, appealed to
their honor, liberality, and generosity, - that he now
appeals to their justice; and insists upon their decreeing this bribe - which he had taken without telling them from whom, where, or on what account -to his own use.
? ? ? ? 366 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Your Lordships remember, that in the letter which
he wrote from Patna, onil the 20th of January, 1782,
he there states that he was in tolerable good circumstances, and that this had arisen from his having continued long in their service. Now, he has continued two years longer in their service, and he is reduced to beggary! "This," he says, "is a single
example of a life spent in the accumulation of crores
for your benefit, and doomed in its close to suffer the
extremity of private want, and to sink in obscurity. "
So far back as in 1773 he thought that he could
save an exceeding good fortune out of his place. In
1782 he says, with gratitude, that he has made a
decent private competency; but in two years after
he sunk to the extremity of private want. And how
does he seek to relieve that want? By taking a
bribe: bribes are no longer taken by him for the
Company's service, but for his own. He takes the
bribe with an express intention of keeping it for his
own use, and he calls upon the Company for their
sanction. If the money was taken without right,
no claim of his could justify its being appropriated
to himself: nor could the Company so appropriate
it; for no man has a right to be generous out of
another's goods. When ihe calls upon their justice
and generosity, they might answer, "If you have a
just demand upon our treasury, state it, and we will
pay it; if it is a demand upon our generosity, state
your merits, and we will consider them. " "But I
have paid myself by a bribe; I have taken another
man's money; and I call upon your justice - to do
what? to restore it to its owner? no -- to allow
me to keep it myself. " Think, my Lords, in what
a situation the Company stands! "I have done a
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ART1CLE. - THIRD DAY. 367 great deal for you; this is the jackal's portion; you have been the lion; I have been endeavoring to prog for you; I am your bribe-pander, your factor of corruption, exposing myself to every kind of scorn and ignominy, to insults even from you. I have
been preying and plundering for you; I have gone through every stage of licentiousness and lewdness, wading through every species of dirt and corruption, for your advantage. I am now sinking into the extremity of private want; do give nme this - what? money? no, this bribe; rob me the man who gave me this bribe; vote me --what? money of your own?
that would be generous: money you owe me? that would be just: no, money which I have extorted from another man; and I call upon your justice to give it me. " This is his idea of justice. He says,
"I am compelled to depart from that liberal plan
which I originally adopted, and to claim from your
justice (for you have forbid me to appeal to your
generosity) the discharge of a debt which I can with
the most scrupulous integrity aver to be justly due,
and which I cannot sustain. " Now, if any of the
Company's servants may say, "I have been extravagant, profuse, - it was all meant for your good,let me prey upon the country at my pleasure,license my bribes, frauds, and peculations, and then you do me justice, - what country are we in, where
these ideas are ideas of generosity and justice?
It might naturally be expected that in this letter
he would have given some account of the person from whom he had taken this bribe. But here, as in the other cases, he had a most effectual oblivion; the Ganges, like Lethe, causes a drowsiness, as you saw in Mr. Middleton; they recollect nothing, they know
? ? ? ? 368 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nothing. He has not stated, from that day to this,
from whom he took that money. But we have made
the discovery. And such is the use of Parliamentary
inquiries, such, too, both to the present age and posterity, will be their use, that, if we pursue them with the vigor which the great trust justly imposed upon
us demands, and if your Lordships do firmly administer justice upon this man's frauds, you will at once put an end to those frauds and prevarications forever. Your Lordships will see, that, in this inquiry,
it is the diligence of the House of Commons, which
he has the audacity to call malice, that has discovered
and brought to light the frauds which we shall be
able to prove against him.
I will now read to your Lordships an extract from
that stuff, called a defence, which he has either written himself or somebody else has written for him, and which he owns or disclaims, just as he pleases, when,
under the slow tortures of a Parliamentary impeachment, he discovered at length from whom he got this last bribe.
"The last part of the charge states, that, in my
letter to the Court of Directors of the 21st February, 1784, 1 have confessed to have received another sum of money, the amount of which is not declared,
but which, from the application of it, could not be
less than thirty-four thousand pounds sterling, &c.
In the year 1783, when I was actually in want of a
sum of money for my private expenses, owing to tile
Company not having at that time sufficient cash ill
their treasury to pay my salary, I borrowed three lacs
of rupees of Rajah Nobkissin, an inhabitant of Calcutta, whom I desired to call upon me with a bond properly filled up. He did so; but at the time I was
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. --THIRD DAY. 369
going to execute it he entreated I would rather accept the money than execute the bond. I neither
accepted the offer nor refused it; and my determination upon it remained suspended between the alternative of keeping the money, as a loan to be repaid, and of taking it, and applying it, as I had done other sums, to the Company's use. And there the
matter rested till I undertook my journey to Lucknow, when I determined to accept the money for the
Company's use; and these were my motives. Having made disbursements from my own cash for services, which, though required to enable me to execute
the duties of my station, I had hitherto omitted to enter into my public accounts, I resolved to reimburse
myself in a mode most suitable to the situation of the
Company's affairs, by charging these disbursements
in my durbar accounts of the present year, and crediting them by a sum privately received, which was
this of Nobkissin's. If my claim on the Company
were not founded in justice, and bonad fide due, my
acceptance of three lacs of rupees from Nobkissin
by no means precludes them from recovering that
sum from me. No member of this Honorable House
suspects me, I hope, of the meanness and guilt of
presenting false accounts. "
We do not suspect him of presenting false accounts: we can prove, we are now radically proving, that he presents false accounts. We suspect no
mall who does not give ground for suspicion; we accuse no man who has not given ground for accusation; and we do not attempt to bring before a court
of justice any charges which we shall not be able decisively to prove. This will put an end to all idle
prattle of malice, of groundless suspicions of guilt,
VOL. x. 24
? ? ? ? 370 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
and of ill-founded charges. We come here to bring
the matter to the test, and here it shall be brought to
the test, between the Commons of Great Britain and
this East India delinquent. In his letter of the 21st
of February, 1784, he says he has never benefited
himself by contingent accounts; and as an excuse
for taking this bribe from Nobkissin, which he did
not discover at the time, but many years afterwards,
at the bar of the House of Commons, he declares that
he wanted to apply it to the contingent account for
his expenses, that is, for what he pretended to have
laid out for the Company, during a great number of
years. He proceeds:"If it should be objected, that the allowance of
these demands would furnish a precedent for others
of the like kind, I have to remark, that in their whole
amount they are but the aggregate of a contingent
account of twelve years; and if it were to become the
practice of those who have passed their prime of life
in your service, and filled, as I have filled it, the first
office of your dominion, to glean from their past accounts all the articles of expense which their inaccuracy or indifference hath overlooked, your interests would suffer infinitely less by the precedent than by
a single example of a life spent in the accumulation
of crores for your benefit and doomed in its close to
suffer the extremity of private want and to sink in
obscurity. "
Here is the man that has told us at the bar of the
House of Commons that he never made up any contingent accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this
bribe, which he received for himself, and never intended to apply to the current use of the Company,
he feigns and invents a claim upon them, namely,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 371
that he had, without any authority of the Company,
squandered away in stationery and budgeros, and
other idle services, a sum amounting to 34,0001.
But was it for the Company's service? Is this language to be listened to? "Everything I thought fit
to expend I have expended for the Company's service. I intended, indeed, at that time, to have been generous. I intended out of my own pocket to have
paid for a translation of the code of Gentoo laws. I
was then in the prime of my life, flowing in money,
and had great expectations: I am now old; I cannot
afford to be generous: I will look back into all my
former accounts, pen, ink, wax, everything that I
generously or prodigally spent as my own humor
might suggest; and though, at the same time, I
know you have given me a noble allowance, I now
make a charge upon you for this sum of money, and
intend to take a bribe in discharge of it.
" Now suppose Lord Cornwallis, who sits in the seat, and I hope will long, and honorably and worthily, fill the seat,
which that gentleman possessed, - suppose Lord
Cornwallis, after never having complained of the
insufficiency of his salary, and after having but two
years ago said he had saved a sufficient competency
out of it, should now tell you that 30,0001. a year
was not enough for him, and that he was sinking into want and distress, and should justify upon that alleged want taking a bribe, and then make out a bill of contingent expenses to cover it, would your Lordships bear this?
Mr. Hastings has told you that he wanted to borrow money for his own use, and that he applied to Rajah Nobkissin, who generously pressed it upon
him as a gift. Rajah Nobkissin is a banian: you
? ? ? ? 372 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
will be astonished to hear of generosity in a banian;
there never was a banian and generosity united together: but Nobkissin loses his banian qualities at once, the moment the light of Mr. Hastings's face
beams upon him. "Here," says Mr. Hastings,' I
have prepared bonds for you. " "Astonishing! how
can you think of the meanness of bonds? You call
upon me to lend you 34,0001. , and propose bonds?
No, you shall have it: you are the Governor-General, who have a large and ample salary; but I know you are a generous man, and I emulate your generosity: I give you all this money. " Nobkissin was quite shocked at Mr. Hastings's offering him a bond.
My Lords, a Gentoo banian is a person a little lower,
a little more penurious, a little more exacting, a little more cunning, a little more money-making, than a Jew. There is not a Jew in the meanest corner of
Duke's Place in London that is so crafty, so much a
usurer, so skilful how to turn money to profit, and so
resolved not to give any money but for profit, as a
Gentoo broker of the class I have mentioned. But this
man, however, at once grows generous, and will not
suffer a bond to be given to him; and Mr. Hastings,
accordingly, is thrown into very great distress. You
see sentiment always prevailing in Mr. Hastings.
The sentimental dialogue which must have passed
between him and a Gentoo broker would have
charmed every one that has a taste for pathos and
sentiment. Mr. Hastings was pressed to receive the
money as a gift. He really does not know what to
do: whether to insist upon giving a bond or not,whether he shall take the money for his own use, or whether he shall take it for the Company's use. But
it may be said of man as it is said of woman: the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 373
woman who deliberates is lost: the man that deliberates about receiving bribes is gone. The moment he
deliberates, that moment his reason, the fortress, is
lost, the walls shake, down it comes, - and at the
same moment enters Nobkissiu into the citadel of his
honor and integrity, with colors flying, with drums
beating, and Mr. Hastings's garrison goes out, very
handsomely indeed, with the honors of war, all for the
benefit of the Company. Mr. Hastings consents to
take the money from Nobkissin; Nobkissin gives the
money, and is perfectly satisfied.
Mr. Hastings took the money with a view to apply it
to the Company's service. How? To pay his own
contingent bills. " Everything that I do," says he,
" and all the money I squander, is all for the Company's benefit. As to particulars of accounts, never look
into them; they are given you upon honor. Let me
take this bribe: it costs you nothing to be just or
generous. I take the bribe: you sanctify it. " But
in every transaction of Mr. Hastings, where we have
got a name, there we have got a crime. Nobkissin
gave him the money, and did not take his bond, I
believe, for it; but Nobkissin, we find, immediately
afterwards enters upon the stewardship or management of one of the most considerable districts in Bengal. We know very well, and shall prove to your Lordships, in what manner such men rack such districts, and exact from the inhabitants the money to
repay themselves for the bribes which had been taken
from them. These bribes are taken under a pretence
of the Company's service, but sooner or later they fall
upon the Company's treasury. And we shall prove
that Nobkissin, within a year from the time when he
gave this bribe, had fallen into arrears to the Compa
? ? ? ? 374 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ny, as their steward, to the amount of a sum the very
interest of which, according to the rate of interest in
that country, amounted to more than this bribe, taken,
as was pretended, for the Company's service. Such
are the consequences of a banian's generosity, and of
Mr. Hastings's gratitude, so far as the interest of the
country is concerned; and this is a good way to pay
Mr. Hastings's contingent accounts. But this is not
all: a most detestable villain is sent up into the country to take the management of it, and the fortunes of all the great families ill it are given entirely into his
power. This is the way by which the Company are to
keep their own servants from falling into " the extremity of private want. " And the Company itself,
in this pretended saving to their treasury by the taking of bribes, lose more than the amount of the bribes received. Wherever a bribe is given on one hand,
there is a balance accruing on the other. No man,
who had any share in the management of the Company's revenues, ever gave a bribe, who did not either extort the full amount of it from the country, or else
fall in balance to the Company to that amount, and
frequently both. In short, Mr. Hastings never was
guilty of corruption, that blood and rapine did not
follow; he never took a bribe, pretended to be for
their benefit, but the Company's treasury was proportionably exhausted by it.
And now was this scandalous and ruinous traffic
in bribes brought to light by the Court of Directors?
No: we got it in the House of Commons. These
bribes appear to have been taken at various times and
upon various occasions; and it was not till his return
from Patna, in February, 1782, that the first communication of any of them was made to the Court of Di
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 375
rectors. Upon the receipt of this letter, the Court of
Directors wrote back to him, requiring some further
explanation upon the subject. No explanation was
given, but a communication of other bribes was made
in his letter, said to be written in May of the same year,
but not dispatched to Europe till the December following. This produced another requisition from the Directors for explanation. And here your Lordships
are to observe that this correspondence is never in the
way of letters written and answers given; but he and
the Directors are perpetually playing at hide-and-seek
with each other, and writing to each other at random:
Mr. Hastings making a communication one day, the
Directors requiring an explanation the next; Mr.
Hastings giving an account of another bribe on the
third day, without giving any explanation of the former. Still, however, the Directors are pursuing their chase. But it was not till they learned that the committees of the House of Commons (for committees of the House of Commons had then some weight) were
frowning upon them for this collusion with Mr. Hastings, that at last some honest men in the Direction were permitted to have some ascendency, and that a
proper letter was prepared, which I shall show your
Lordships, demanding from Mr. Hastings alln exact
account of all the bribes that he had received, and
painting to him, in colors as strong at least as those
I use, his bribery, his frauds, and peculations, -and
what doeo them great honor for that moment, they
particularly direct that the money which was taken
from the Nabob of Oude should be carried to his account. These paragraphs were prepared by the Committee of Correspondence, and, as I understand, ap, proved by the Court of Directors, but never were sent
? ? ? ? 376 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
out to India. However, something was sent, but
miserably weak and lame of its kind; and Mr. Hastings never answered. it, or gave them any explanation
whatever. He now, being prepared for his departure
from Calcutta, and having finished all his other business, went up to Oude upon a chase in which just now
we cannot follow him. He returned in great disgust
to Calcutta, and soon after set sail for England, without ever giving the Directors one word of the explanation which he had so often promised, and they had repeatedly asked.
We have now got Mr. Hastings in England, where
you will suppose some satisfactory account of all
these matters would be obtained from him. One
would suppose, that, on his arrival in London, he
would have been a little quickened by a menace, as
he expresses it, which had been thrown out against
him in the House of Commons, that an inquiry would
be made into his conduct; and the Directors, apprehensive of the same thing, thought it good gently
to insinuate to him by a letter, written by whom and
how we do not know, that he ought to give some explanation of these accounts. This produced a letter
which I believe in the business of the whole world
cannot be paralleled: not even himself could be his
parallel in this. Never did inventive folly, working
upon conscious guilt, and throwing each other totally
in confusion, ever produce such a false, fraudulent,
prevaricating letter as this, which is now to be given
to you.
You have seen him at Patna, at Calcutta, in the
country, on the Ganges: now you see him at the
waters at Cheltenham; and you will find his letter
from that place to comprehend the substance of all
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 377
his former letters, and to be a digest of all the falsity,
fraud, and nonsense contained in the whole of them.
Here it is, and your Lordslips will suffer it to be read.
I must beg your patience; I must acknowledge that
it has been the most difficult of all things to explain, but much more difficult to make pleasant and
not wearisome, falsity and fraud pursued through all
its artifices; and therefore, as it has been the most
painful work to us to unravel fraud and prevarication, so there is nothing that more calls for the attention, the patience, the vigilance, and the scrutiny of an exact court of justice. But as you have already had almost the whole of the man, do not think
it too much to hear the rest in this letter from Cheltenham. It is dated, Cheltenham, 11th of July,
1785, addressed to William Devaynes, Esquire; and
it begins thus:" Sir,- The Honorable Court of Directors, in their
general letter to Bengal by the' Surprise,' dated the
16th of March, 1784, were pleased to express their
desire that I should inform tliem of the periods when
each sum of the presents mentioned in my address
of the 22d May, 1782, was received, - what were
my motives for withholding the several receipts from
the knowledge of the Council, or of the Court of
Directors, -- and what were my reasons for taking
bonds for part of these sums, and for paying other
sums into the treasury as deposits, on my own acCOUlnt. "
I wish your Lordships to pause a moment. Here
is a letter written in July, 1785. You see that from
the 29th of December [November? ], 1780, till that
* See this letter in the Appendix to the Eighth and Sixteenth
Charges, Vol. IX. pp. 319 - 325, in the present edition.
? ? ? ? 378 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HA STINGS.
time, during which interval, though convinced in his
own conscience and though lie had declared his own
opinion of the necessity of giving a full explanation
of these money transactions, lie had been imposing
upon the Directors false and prevaricating accounts
of them, they were never able to obtain a full disclosure from him.
He goes oil:-" I have been kindly apprised that
the information required as above is yet expected
from me. I hope that the circumstances of my past
situation, when considered, will plead my excuse for
having thus long withheld it. The fact is, that I
was not at the Presidency when the'Surprise' arrived; and when I returned to it, my time and attepltion were so entirely engrossed, to the day of my final departure from it, by a variety of other more
important occupations, of which, Sir, I may safely
appeal to your testimony, grounded on the large portion contributed by myself of the volumes which
compose our Consultations of that period,"These Consultations,' my Lords, to which he appeals, form matter of one of the charges that the Commons have brought against Mr. Hastings, --
namely, a fraudulent attempt to ruin certain persons
employed in subordinate situations under him, for
the purpose, by intruding himself into their place,
of secretly carrying on his own transactions. These
volumes of Consultations were written to justify that
act.
He next says,-" The submission which my respect
would have enjoined me to pay to the command
imposed on me was lost to my recollection, perhaps
from the stronger impression which the first and
distant perusal of it had left on my mind, that it
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARUICLE. - THIRD DAN. 379
was rather intended as a reprehension for something
which had given offence in my report of the original
transaction than an expression of any want of a further elucidation of it. "
Permit me to make a few remarks upon this extraordinary passage. A letter is written to him, containing a repetition of the request which had been made a thousand times before, and with which he
had as often promised to comply. And here he says,
" It was lost to my recollection. " Observe his memory: he can forget the command, but he has an
obscure recollection that he thought it a reprehension rather than a demand! Now a reprehension
is a stronger mode of demand. When I say to a
servant, "W Thy have you not given me the account
which I have so often asked for? " is he to answer,
" The reason I have not given it is because I thought
you were railing at and abusing me"?
He goes on: - I will now endeavor to reply to the
different questions which have been stated to me, in
as explicit a manner as I am able. To such information as I can give the Honorable Court is fully
entitled; and where that shall prove defective, I will
point out the only means by which it may be rendered more complete. "
In order that your Lordships may thoroughly enter into the spirit of this letter, I must request that
you will observe how handsomely and kindly these
tools of Directors have expressed themselves to him,
and that even their baseness and subserviency to him
were not able to draw from him anything that could
be satisfactory to his enemies: for as to these his
friends, he cares but little about satisfying them,
though they call upon him in consequence of his
? ? ? ? 380 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
own promise; and this he calls a reprehension. Trhey
thus express themselves:-" Although it is not our
intention to express any doubt of the integrity of the
Governor-General, - on the contrary, after having
received the presents, we cannot avoid expressing
our approbation of his conduct in bringing them to
the. credit of the Company, - yet we must confess
the statement of those transactions appears to us in
many points so unintelligible, that we feel ourselves
under the necessity of calling on the Governor-General for an explanation, agreeable to his promise voluntarily made to us. We therefore desire to be informed of the different periods when each sum was received, and what were the Governor-General's motives for withholding the several receipts from the
knowledge of the Council and of the Court of Directors, and what were his reasons for taking bonds for
part of these sums and paying other sums into the
treasury as deposits upon his own account. " Such
is their demand, and this is what his memory furnishes as nothing but a reprehension.
He then proceeds: -" First, I believe I can affirm
with certainty that the several sums mentioned in the
account transmitted with my letter above mentioned
were received at or within a very few days of the
dates which are affixed to them in the account. But
as this contains only the gross sums, and each of
these was received in different payments, though at
no great distance of time, I cannot therefore assign
a great degree of accuracy to the account. "-Your
Lordships see, that, after all, lhe declares he cannot
make his account accurate. He further adds, "Perhaps the Honorable Court will judge this sufficient"
- that is, this explanation, niamely, that he can give
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 381
none -" for any purpose to which their inquiry was
directed; but if it should not be so, I will beg leave
to refer, for a more minute information, and for the
means of making any investigation which they may
think it proper to direct, respecting the particulars
of this transaction, to Mr. Larkins, your accountantgeneral, who was privy to every process of it, and possesses, as I believe, the original paper, which contained the only account that I ever kept of it. " Here is a man who of his bribe accounts cannot
give an account in the country where they are car
ried on. When you call upon him in Bengal, he
cannot give the account, because he is in Bengal;
when he comes to England, he cannot give the account here, because his accounts are left in Bengal. Again, he keeps no accounts himself, but his accounts are in Bengal, in the hands of somebody
else: to him he refers, and we shall see what that
reference produced.
"In this, each receipt was, as I recollect, specifically inserted, with the name of the person by whom it was made; and I shall write to him to desire that
he will furnish you with the paper itself, if it is still
in being and in his hands, or with whatever he can
distinctly recollect concerning it. " --Here are accounts kept for the Company, and yet he does not know whether they are in existence anywhere.
" For my motives for withholding the several receipts from the knowledge of the Council or of the Court of Directors, and for taking bonds for part of
these sums, and paying others into the treasury as
deposits on my own account, I have generally accounted in my letter to the Honorable the Court
of Directors of the 22d of May, 1782, - namely, that
? ? ? ? 382 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I either chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which my
memory at that distance of time could verify, and
that I did not think it worth my care to observe
the same means with the rest. It will not be expected that I should be able to give a more correct explanation of my intentions after a lapse of three
years, having declared at the time that many particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither shall
I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. "
You have heard of that Oriental figure called, in
the banian language, a painche, in English, a screw.
It is a puzzled and studied involution of a period,
framed in order to prevent the discovery of truth and
the detection of fraud; and surely it cannot be better exemplified than in this sentence: c" Neither shall I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. " Observe, that he says, not facts stated,
but facts implied in the report. And of what was
this to be a report? Of things which the Directors
declared they did not understand. And then the inferences which are to follow these implied facts are to follow them e But how? With a strong probability. If you have a mind to study this Oriental
figure of rhetoric, the painche, here it is for you in
its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever
gave an example of any figure of oratory that can
match this.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 383
But let us endeavor to unravel the whole passage. First he states, that, in May, 1782, he had
forgotten his motives for falsifying the Company's
accounts; but he affirms the facts contained in the
report, and afterwards, very rationally, draws such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. And if I understand it at all, which
God knows I no more pretend to do than Don Quix
ote did those sentences of lovers in romance-writers
of which he said it made him run mad to attempt
to discover the meaning, the inference is, " Why do
you call upon me for accounts now, three years after the time when I could not give you them?
